


Not Over-roasted, Just Lightly Charred

by Fluffifullness



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, M/M, POCecil, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos just really likes coffee. And other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Over-roasted, Just Lightly Charred

**Author's Note:**

> It wound up being more like a collection of little coffee shop AU headcanons than a full-fledged AU, I think.
> 
> Written (oh so very late) for [my cute friend](brandone.co.vu), whose birthday was just a little bit ago! He helped me get a lot of the ideas here, because late-night Skype conversations with lots of headcanons are the best kind of Skype conversation. The link is to his tumblr, which makes following him extra easy! ;)
> 
> ([And I also posted it to tumblr.](http://fluffifullness.tumblr.com/post/99710808198/so-im-obscenely-slow-at-writing-fic-sometimes-but))

_A friendly neighborhood hangout where the drinks are hot, the counters are clean, and mysterious ingredients pass into unguarded cups while we all pretend not to notice._

_Welcome to Night Vale._

Carlos has to read the sign twice just to convince himself that he’s seeing it correctly. For one of a thousand messages scrawled across a simple chalkboard out on one of a thousand city sidewalks, it’s still unusual enough to be eye-catching. Was the invitation supposed to come off sounding vaguely like a threat? Was it intended to be more sinister than darkly comedic, quirky, cute?

What reason is there for the winged figures, drawn in detail using colors Carlos has never seen and can’t begin to describe? (Upon closer inspection, he decides that one of them, at least, is undeniably black, but the others continue to defy identification.) They don’t seem to be mascots or any part of the shop’s logo, but there they are, anyway, drawn off to one side of the board, large and bold enough that it’s almost as though they couldn’t possibly belong anywhere else.

The letters that form the words and phrases of the advertisement have a careful quality to them. They are all neat lines and flawless curves – the written equivalent of perfect enunciation. Underneath each line in English is another, smaller line of what look like ancient pictographs. Carlos may not be a linguist, but he can’t help thinking that the characters aren’t part of any real language, or at least not one that has ever been widely recognized or known about.

He decides that he likes the handwriting. He likes the words themselves, even likes the feathery creatures with their multitudinous eyes and spindly limbs. He likes the warm smell – roasting espresso beans, chestnut, cinnamon, nutmeg and a whole multitude of other, stranger things – coming from between two heavy-looking oak doors even better than all of that.

It’s interesting, Carlos decides. It’s unorthodox but it’s definitely interesting enough to be more than effective.

He enters the shop.

 

“A scientist!”

The old woman peers up at him dubiously – or, more than dubiously, _suspiciously._ Guardedly. “A scientist, eh?” she repeats, this time more to herself than to the rest of the coffee shop’s incredibly varied group of customers. Carlos breathes a little sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected his first introduction to be broadcasted to the entire establishment, and the tone of it – is there something somehow wrong with his line of work?

“Yes,” he stammers. “I… study things. Various things.”

“That what you’re here for?”

“I’m here to try the coffee,” Carlos says. “I’ve heard it’s interesting.”

“‘Interesting,’” she scoffs. “Dunno what it is you look for in a simple cup of coffee, but I’m willin’ to bet you’ll enjoy what Cecil’s got to offer if just ‘interesting’ is worth the trip. ‘Specially a – scientist, you said?” She nods. “Your type. You look like a fish out of water, boy. The caffeine’ll do you good.”

“Oh, it doesn’t have much of an effect on me these days,” Carlos says sheepishly, trailing off. “Er…”

“Josie,” she supplies, grinning in a way that’s maybe a little hungry and maybe a little good-natured. “They call me Old Woman Josie ‘round here.”

“Josie –”

“Old Woman Josie,” she corrects.

“Right. Er – maybe I should place an order now. Is that… Cecil?” He gestures at a figure, shrouded in shadow and, Carlos imagines, probably watching them both closely from its vantage point behind the too-clean counter. “The barista?”

“He prefers to be referred to as ‘just another member of our little community,’” Old Woman Josie says with a nod. “Nothing as fancy as a barista, though I suppose you might be able to call him that, too, if you were so inclined. Doubt he’d like it much, though.”

Carlos is tempted to ask for more information about this so-called community, but, after all, scientists favor empirical observation, and the best way to get that is to go after it oneself.

But that’s easier said than done.

The man at the counter, community member or barista or whatever else have you, is incredibly handsome, obviously curious, and (perhaps) unintentionally foreboding. He smiles, murmurs something about hearing Carlos’ introduction, and, more loudly, begins to speak in a voice as deep and dark as the void of consciousness itself.

“Welcome,” the man at the counter says, but the greeting sounds stunted, unfinished, until he adds in a lower voice, clandestine, almost, “to Night Vale.”

 

The learning curve is steep, acclimation an unexpected and fast-paced process – and all of it is like a home-coming, almost, or maybe not – but it’s comforting, really, the entire atmosphere, even at its darkest. Carlos learns a lot, about a lot of things. For example, on the more personal side of learned things –

Cecil is good at his job. The coffee he makes is just as delicious as it is volatile, and if there is anything to fear from it, that only means a little more excitement to amplify the caffeine buzz.

Cecil has a voice like vast river gorges and sunlit rafters and dark alleyways. He has a voice like a song, a voice never wasted for all that he never stops talking (news, traffic, weather, opinions and politics and science, Carlos’ favorite – an entire, almost literal broadcast all for a single, isolated location – but maybe that’s why it never _feels_ isolated).

Cecil is handsome, dark-skinned, long-haired, usually smiling and always moving. His hands tend to play charades with the air; they tell stories in a duet with Cecil himself, mixing and brewing one moment and adding grand gestures the next. He wears every color, swathes of color, colors blended and quilted and stitched together, colors Carlos didn’t know existed.

Cecil exaggerates, gossips, weaves epics out of anecdotes, and Carlos finds that even on his first visit, even on his second and third and finally fourth, he can’t help listening with interest – no more than he can help staying mostly silent, himself, maybe because he’s intimidated, maybe because he just doesn’t know what to say.

Cecil is infatuated with him.

Carlos knows not because Cecil says anything to him, but because Cecil says _everything_ to anyone else who will listen – and his voice carries, doesn’t it, in their little coffee shop, so high-ceilinged that the actual ceiling can’t be seen for the gradient darkness? There are lights up there, sometimes, but not the normal overhead kind that illuminate the other shops Carlos frequents (that is, until he stops visiting the other shops altogether, drawn as he is to the chalkboard angels, the purple neon, the Night Vale regulars and Cecil’s coffee and Cecil’s voice and Cecil and Cecil _and_ ) – the lights here move like bats, changing directions on a dime, changing colors, flickering in and out of the void above.

“What’s up there?” he asks one day. He does not ask Cecil, but he knows that Cecil hears, knows that Cecil will probably wish Carlos had asked _him_ and not John Peters – you know, the farmer, the one who supplies Night Vale with most of its milk, cream, unnamed spices – but it’s the kind of question that Cecil generally refuses to answer, anyway, claiming things about corporate restrictions and café management.

“Gotten a bit brighter lately,” John Peters drawls. “Reckon it’s something new up there.”

“What sort of lighting is it?” Carlos wonders. “Did someone install more?” He can’t quite imagine _when_ such an installation could have occurred; Night Vale’s hours are lax at best, and Carlos has come, inexplicably, in the middle of the night to find the place open, most of the same customers always there, Cecil always there, always telling stories (sinister, beautiful, sometimes reassuring stories that, in the dead of night, soothe the ache of loneliness, maybe, and the stress of long days spent elsewhere).

John Peters raises an eyebrow at Carlos, snorts and then turns away.

(He runs a farm, Carlos is sure of it – because Cecil is sure of it, because John Peters not only lets the claim pass without objection but even augments it with personal stories and reports – but he’s always _here,_ right here in Night Vale, drinking bitter black coffee and no farm in sight. Carlos is dying to know how he does it, he’s positively fascinated.)

 

The coffee shop’s lights – dim, flickering – attract no insects despite being the only lights in genuine nighttime darkness, at hours far past the normal closing times of places like the other coffee shop, the one across the street. The lights may be weak, the occasional music discordant and soft, but it’s all an entirely solitary beacon, and so to Carlos the lights might as well be blinding, the music deafening. He unfailingly finds his way to their source via routes he can’t quite trace and time he can’t quite measure – like an insect to a bright light.

Cecil scoffs when Carlos – curious, question-asking mode over a shot of strong espresso – mentions (nervously, despite his best efforts) the oddity of the hours that pass around Night Vale.

“ _Time._ My dear Carlos, you mustn’t concern yourself with so many things unreal.”

 

He introduces himself properly – or, well, he finally has a proper conversation with Cecil, and the conversation turns awfully quickly to Carlos himself, becomes unobtrusively personal. He’s fairly certain that Cecil planned it that way, but it doesn’t bother him, somehow.

“A coffee scientist?”

“I –well, no, not exactly – ”

“Well, of course, not _exactly_ ,” Cecil repeats. “No one here is exactly _anything._ No one _anywhere_ is exactly anything. Exactness is an unachievable standard of being. We should all strive to be perfect, instead. Agreed?”

Carlos shakes his head. “Doesn’t that depend on what an individual wants? Perfection is only one, er, possibility.”

“A brilliant point – and surprisingly applicable to the world at large, coming from a scientist engaged in such a wonderfully specific area of study!”

“I don’t research coffee,” Carlos insists. “I’m a scientist. I study other things. Actually my job is to understand things, and since coffee is a thing, and I happen to be interested in that thing…” He shrugs. “I’m a coffee enthusiast. And a scientist. They just… _overlap_ sometimes.”

“Oh, I see,” Cecil says, resting his chin in the palm of his hand and peering up at Carlos. “I also have overlapping interests, as it happens.”

 

Coffee is Night Vale’s specialty, but the pizza slices and sandwiches they offer – and, well, _strongly recommend_ at least once a week – make up several of Carlos’ dinners during his time (how much time – or whether or not it really matters – he’s not sure) spent visiting Night Vale on a very regular basis.

That is, until they aren’t offered in quite the same form, anymore.

Carlos’ memories of the reason for that change are somewhat vague, but he can’t help thinking that the new menu – all wheat-free – is somehow a safer and more well-thought-out option.

 

The coffee shop has free wi-fi, but computers are not allowed in the coffee shop.

(The Internet is not allowed in the coffee shop. Please refrain from speaking about or considering the Internet and/or its use in the coffee shop.)

“Please, call it a café,” Cecil says. “Not because the word means ‘coffee’ and ‘restaurant’ at the same time – and thus is more to-the-point – but because it would sound fancy even if it were to be used to refer to the place across the street.” His expression changes suddenly. “ _Ugh._ Who decides to name their place of business _Desert Bluffs_ , anyway? It’s a thoroughly subpar name, if you ask me.”

Carlos shrugs, nods. “Could you tell me more about the – that machine?”

Cecil gestures at the object in question. “This one? It’s been here as long as anyone can remember – our café’s owner, included. Could it be that you’re using your science to investigate this most recent of our many strange mishaps, perfect Carlos? The steam coming out of it is nothing to be concerned about. The cloud may seem to glow brighter whenever any of us approach it, but while I do not know where it came from or what it wants, I do know that we have no reason to fear.”

“Okay,” Carlos says. “Okay.”

Cecil smiles quizzically.

“But…” Carlos is ready to go about asking for more information, but his attention is caught on Cecil’s words. (It’s harder for that to happen when he’s standing right in front of him, talking to him one on one. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, wonders if the way his mouth moves lives up to Cecil’s grandiose expectations – assuming that Cecil has those, assuming that he isn’t just very good at seeing the best in whatever is right in front of him.)

So Carlos changes his question, abandoning for the moment the equally interesting question of the glowing cloud above them.

“Who is the owner? Do they work for some corporation?”

Cecil clears his throat. “Pamela Winchel,” he says. “She’s very talented; it’s entirely possible to hear her grinding her teeth even when she’s standing on the other side of a thick, thick wall.”

A shiver runs up Carlos’ spine at that. “Oh,” he stammers, “I see.”

“We also have a council of some sort that governs important business decisions. The others, I’m afraid I can’t mention in detail, but I would advise you to be wary of likely hiding spots for cameras and microphones about the size of a coffee bean.”

 

“I call them Erika,” Old Woman Josie tells him.

“I’m sorry?”

“Erika. On the chalkboard outside. Darlings, aren’t they?”

“Oh,” Carlos realizes. No one else in the café has ever been willing to so much as acknowledge their existence; he’s gone as far as touching the drawings, eerie though they are, and all he’s managed to learn is that they are warm to the touch and, if not impossible, then at least very difficult to erase. “Do you draw them?”

“Oh, no,” Josie says quickly. “No one draws them. They’re just there.”

 

“His name is Khoshekh,” Cecil says cheerfully. “He just _hates_ being left on the floor, so our staff is always having to carry him around in their arms. Otherwise, he’ll just sit there on the counter all day, and we wouldn’t want him getting fur in the espresso, would we? Would we?”

The last few words are directed only at Khoshekh; Carlos leans in close to look at the cat and sees that, aside from what seem to be a few extra rows of shark-like teeth, the animal is not all that different from a normal cat. He might even be cute.

He has a bit of a mean streak, though, and there is a café-wide rule against taking his picture; drawing, Cecil says, is allowed – but strongly discouraged.

But Cecil, despite all of his talk about how surprised he was to find Khoshekh hiding in the bathroom one morning, quickly grows to love the cat with all of its peculiarities – and somehow Carlos begins to understand how it is that the rest of the café’s regulars can be so able to accept him despite his running status as an outsider. It’s because Cecil’s affections are contagious, because he wears them on his sleeve, glows with them, puts them into words so strong that Carlos is certain no one else in the world has the same capacity for them that Cecil –

Well, and so Carlos also likes Khoshekh, learns where he likes to be scratched, given the opportunity during those rare and brief windows of time when he stops to speak with Cecil face to face.

(Emotions are complicated, slippery, eel-like things, and they defy every variety of logic and labeling that Carlos has ever endeavored to learn. He thinks that might be what it is – yes, just that.)

 

If Cecil’s love for the café and for – for Carlos, too, a hesitant and genuinely uncertain thought even now – is contagious, then so, too, might be the vitriolic dislike Cecil holds toward a single, only pettily rude customer who appears from time to time in the café.

Carlos isn’t sure about Steve Carlsberg one way or another; he’s never talked to him, which seems surprising given that he’s heard so much about him – none of it good, of course. None of it has been terrible, either, though; most of Cecil’s complaints are fairly petty, but he’s loud enough about them that one would think they were grievances taken down in blood.

“Did, uh, did Cecil and that man he complains about – Mr. Carlsberg, was it? Is there some reason for Cecil to hold a grudge against him?”

“Oh, Steve?” Dana’s voice falls to a conspiratorial whisper, but she’s smiling the way one of the café’s regular customers, a woman, smiled when she was last seen – standing before one of the heavily cloaked and veiled people who so often mill about the restaurant, shaking and murmuring unintelligible things to the carpeted floor. Breathing too heavily.

Which is to say, it’s a very genuine, warm, heartfelt kind of smile.

“Cecil’s never mentioned it, himself,” she says, “but I’ve heard that they’re actually brothers in law.”

Carlos has heard a lot about Dana, but it was only recently that he had the opportunity to meet her. She had more or less stopped coming to work shortly after Carlos “arrived,” as they all prefer to term it, but had still (and inexplicably) been keeping in touch with Cecil – who, in turn, had made sure that everyone in the café knew what she was up to.

“But why would he hate Steve for that? Isn’t there something…?”

Dana came back. Carlos came back, or – or he came close, fell short, lost track of the address and found another café, and an interesting one at that, only – only there was still _Night Vale_ , somewhere, and – but –

“They think about things very differently. Well, one of them thinks and the other tries not to, sometimes. I think that’s more accurate.”

But he’s getting ahead of himself, and aren’t we all?

 

Before that, long before what was nearly a disastrous corporate takeover, there was – is – an infestation – cockroaches, maybe, or termites. Something small and dark with legs and probably wings and definitely fangs. Venom. Carlos has some minor requisite knowledge for dealing with that sort of thing, and as under-the-radar as Night Vale is, it’s certainly no more immune to the terror of public health investigators than it is to the abject horrors of wheat and its by-products.

Before everything else – or maybe after it – Carlos is sure that a year has passed, and somehow investigating the bizarre phenomena that come par for the coffee course has become routine. He still hasn’t run out of things to order, he doubts he ever will, he loves the ambience, the mysterious lights and the way his hair sometimes stands up on the back of his neck unprovoked.

Teddy, the coffee shop’s caretaker, in a manner of speaking, the janitor – and, not-so-secretly, the head of an illegal gambling ring in the back room (gambling involving not cards but bowling balls and the occasional crash of what sounds like an incomplete set of pins falling) – calls everyone to come look at something just as Carlos is about to do the same.

He means to say that he’s developed a pesticide in his spare time; it’s nothing too strong or toxic, he plans to explain, but it should do the job reasonably well. He even manages to get all their attention, but no sooner has he knelt by one of the insects’ main entrances and started to describe his solution than he feels a burning, stinging, throbbing in his chest, and yes they have wings and yes they have fangs with venom and they have grown, they have grown _so much_ and there are so _many_ of them.

He stumbles to his feet, only to fall again shortly thereafter, and he – it was just a simple trip out for coffee, and now this –

 

And then he is ahead of himself again, and his eyes are open and he knows, somehow, that Cecil is taking a rare break somewhere that isn’t here. He knows that he wants to be there, too, knows that his head aches, that he’s even bleeding, that this room with its makeshift bed and the makeshift treatment he’s received all form one part of a simple coffee shop in a simple city full of simple people.

His fingers tremble as he types. One year. One year later.

His fingers do not tremble when they meet outside, with the mysterious lights of a void possibly more infinite than that of their little café spinning overhead. They do not tremble when he sees Cecil, when Cecil understands Carlos’ meaning.

They do not tremble when the lights slow and the world stills, too, and everything in both of them ceases trembling, ceases movement, finds a gentle, quiet place and rests there for just a moment.

Inside, there are hot drinks and clean counters, a glowing cloud and a cat too often airborne, lights and warm smells and dark figures. Outside, there are stars, and void, and a sign – ornate, done in purples and blacks, serpentine lines and tentacle-like designs – _Night Vale,_ it reads.

And underneath that sign is another, smaller one that reads simply “ _Coffee_.”


End file.
